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Access...
I hike this mountain every summer and the road continues to deteriorate. It is NOT recommended for anything except a pick-up and a high clearance vehicle. The first bridge has been severely undermined with the spring floods and is in need of major repair. Because the area beyond is no longer being logged (for quite some time now) it may be a while for the bridge to be repaired and the road to be grated. I have a Saab 9-3 that is a tank and has scene very bad dirt roads, but I bottomed out the front severely on the first bridge and needed to build up a simply ramp to make sure I crossed on the way out. Could see remnants of plastic undercarriages where others experienced the same damage. However, the 3 or so miles up the dirt road to this point is still very tough sledding in spots. If you feel you can pick your way to the bridge, park here and walk the 1/2mile or so to the trailhead. It is about 9 miles roundtrip from here.
Trail...
The trail still remains as one of the poorest maintained trails on any mountain I have ever hiked. I traditionally spend a few hours on each annual hike to trim back the trail, build some simply waterbars and clean up some minor blow-down. This time I simply trimmed back some overgrowth in spots. Frankly, the Bates Outing Club and AMC-Maine Chapter (which I am a member) should be very embarrassed to have their name on the sign after the trailhead depicting the trail is maintained by them. One of the major reasons it is so badly wet and eroded is due to the clear-cut on the left for much of the approach to the cabin that has caused the water to run down into the trail. It is essentially passed the installation of waterbars as the trail has been eroded in most places well below the top of the land. There has been no effort to build and elevated crossings or divert the trail in spots. You might notice a slight diversion from the trail in a really boggy area that I cut several years ago, now that trail is very wet and is practically useless.
BOC is not going to do anything as it is a bunch of students who come and go. I wrote them several years ago without any response or successful outcome. The AMC should really make an effort to put this on their front burner for next year and have at least a couple volunteer sessions on putting some major work into this.
The climb....
Getting off my soapbox, the crappy access road left the entire mountain and round-trip all to myself. The haze was probably the worst I have ever seen from the top of any mountain in my life and I could barely make our Sugarloaf to the north. Disgusting.
I hike this mountain every summer and the road continues to deteriorate. It is NOT recommended for anything except a pick-up and a high clearance vehicle. The first bridge has been severely undermined with the spring floods and is in need of major repair. Because the area beyond is no longer being logged (for quite some time now) it may be a while for the bridge to be repaired and the road to be grated. I have a Saab 9-3 that is a tank and has scene very bad dirt roads, but I bottomed out the front severely on the first bridge and needed to build up a simply ramp to make sure I crossed on the way out. Could see remnants of plastic undercarriages where others experienced the same damage. However, the 3 or so miles up the dirt road to this point is still very tough sledding in spots. If you feel you can pick your way to the bridge, park here and walk the 1/2mile or so to the trailhead. It is about 9 miles roundtrip from here.
Trail...
The trail still remains as one of the poorest maintained trails on any mountain I have ever hiked. I traditionally spend a few hours on each annual hike to trim back the trail, build some simply waterbars and clean up some minor blow-down. This time I simply trimmed back some overgrowth in spots. Frankly, the Bates Outing Club and AMC-Maine Chapter (which I am a member) should be very embarrassed to have their name on the sign after the trailhead depicting the trail is maintained by them. One of the major reasons it is so badly wet and eroded is due to the clear-cut on the left for much of the approach to the cabin that has caused the water to run down into the trail. It is essentially passed the installation of waterbars as the trail has been eroded in most places well below the top of the land. There has been no effort to build and elevated crossings or divert the trail in spots. You might notice a slight diversion from the trail in a really boggy area that I cut several years ago, now that trail is very wet and is practically useless.
BOC is not going to do anything as it is a bunch of students who come and go. I wrote them several years ago without any response or successful outcome. The AMC should really make an effort to put this on their front burner for next year and have at least a couple volunteer sessions on putting some major work into this.
The climb....
Getting off my soapbox, the crappy access road left the entire mountain and round-trip all to myself. The haze was probably the worst I have ever seen from the top of any mountain in my life and I could barely make our Sugarloaf to the north. Disgusting.
